


gifts this precious can’t be offered up by fools

by iwasfollowingyou



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: (as in they've been hooking up not that they're actually together), (not super prevalent but when roman is involved there's always gonna be internalized homophobia), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Denial of Feelings, Episode Related, Episode: s02e09 DC, Episode: s02e10 This Is Not For Tears, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Piano, Pining, Post-Canon, Roman Roy is Bad at Feelings, Roman Roy is Gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:47:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwasfollowingyou/pseuds/iwasfollowingyou
Summary: Roman thinks, maybe, if Stewy had come to him the first time around, they wouldn’t be in this position. Roman wouldn’t have let the vote fail. He would have been better than Kendall.He would have been given a chance to prove himself as the stronger dog.He may be Stewy’s last choice, but Stewy may be his last chance.
Relationships: Stewy Hosseini/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Comments: 7
Kudos: 36





	gifts this precious can’t be offered up by fools

**Author's Note:**

> this entire thing was kickstarted by a headcanon that stewy plays the piano and tries to teach roman how to play. if you want a soundtrack for the fic, my friend (and co-creator of the headcanon) put together a [playlist of stewy's favorite piano pieces](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1XUIEHXEQxFf8gFrdWHn8F?si=UyH3yMGwQk-e8x7UGxJl8w), several of which are the ones he plays in this fic.
> 
> title is from the song "it's easier" by john grant

Stewy’s apartment hallway is wide and brightly lit. It gives Roman a headache. 

He bounces on the balls of his feet, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the door. It’s another moment before the lock clicks and it swings open.

“Long time no see,” Stewy says. 

“Go fuck yourself.” Roman brushes past him. 

“Ouch.” Stewy puts a hand over his heart and follows him into the living room. 

“What the fuck, Stewy?” Roman asks. 

Stewy tilts his head to the side. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“The fucking stories, dude. You piece of shit.”

He nods, a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Ah. You saw.”

“Of course I fucking saw.” Roman shoots him an icy look. Stewy doesn’t even flinch.

Stewy sits down on the edge of the sofa and looks up at Roman as he paces. “Rome—”

“Don’t _Rome_ me,” Roman snaps. 

Stewy holds up his hands in surrender. Roman feels bad for half a second, but he shoves the feeling to the side. He’s not in the mood for Stewy’s games, not when the world is falling apart around him.

“That was kind of a dick move.”

Stewy sighs, leaning back against the cushions. “You know it’s not about you.”

Roman rolls his eyes. “No shit.”

It’s not like he’s personally offended. He’s offended by the fact that Stewy waltzed back in and is trying to destroy his family’s company. Again. He knows it’s not about him. None of it has ever been about him.

“I’m just doing what’s best for me, Rome.” Stewy looks up at him. “I’m not trying to fucking hurt you or whatever. I made a fucking business decision. That’s what I do. Are you really pissed off at me for that?”

Roman flops back onto the couch with a huff. “No,” he admits, but he sends a glare Stewy’s way anyway.

He feels like he should be pissed off at Stewy. He is on some level, he thinks. Or frustrated. Or annoyed. Or _something_. But he still hadn’t stopped himself from coming over, so maybe Stewy won this round. Stewy has been winning a lot of rounds recently. 

Everything is falling to pieces, and he wants to blame Stewy, even though he knows it’s not Stewy’s fault. It’d just be easier that way, if he could tell himself that Stewy is to blame for everything going wrong in his life right now. Stewy is more to blame for the very few things going right. Roman is never going to tell him that. Roman can barely admit it to himself, much less say it out loud.

“You’re a total dick,” he says.

Stewy tilts his head and smiles. “Yeah, I know.”

“I hate you.”

“You’ve mentioned.” Stewy slides himself over closer to Roman and grabs him by the collar. “Anything else to share?”

Roman’s heartbeat quickens. He wants to snap back with some kind of witty retort, to piss Stewy off, to make him shove him around a little. Stewy has the glint in his eye that tells Roman exactly what he’s going to get if he talks back. 

Roman swallows. “No,” he lies.

“Good.” Stewy pulls him in and kisses him.

Roman lets Stewy kiss him for a minute—he can’t help returning it, either, he never fucking can, despite his best attempts. Stewy’s hand finds its way into Roman’s hair, tugging lightly, and Roman holds in a whimper. 

He pulls back and clears his throat. “I don’t—”

Stewy immediately drops his hand and sits back. “You okay?”

Roman nods quickly. “Yeah, no, I’m fucking—give me a minute. One minute.”

“Sure.” Stewy wipes his thumb over his bottom lip and clears his throat. 

Roman averts his eyes. His heart is pounding in his chest. He wants to lean back in, to let Stewy kiss him again, to let Stewy do whatever the fuck he wants to him. But there’s a weird twisting in his gut, something telling him not to give in. He tries to push it away.

His gaze travels around the room. For as often as he’s been here, he hasn’t spent a lot of time studying Stewy’s decor. It’s nice. Lived-in, unlike Roman’s own apartment. The art hanging on the walls actually looks like art that Stewy bought himself, not art that someone bought for him because they knew what would look good in the space. There’s a grand piano in the corner of the room. Roman tilts his head. 

“You play?”

Stewy follows Roman’s gaze, then shrugs. “Been playing my whole life.”

“Why?”

He furrows his eyebrows. “Why?”

“Is that a weird fucking question?”

“...no, I guess.” He shrugs. “I mean, my parents signed me up for lessons when I was a kid. I liked it. I was good at it. I kept playing.”

“Huh.” Roman studies the piano carefully. It is really a beautiful instrument, he thinks, even if it was just a piece of furniture. Stewy has good taste. Roman won’t tell him that.

“Want me to play something?”

Roman shrugs. “I don’t care. You can if you want.”

Stewy stands up and walks over to the piano. He sits down on the bench, waits a second, and then starts playing.

Roman has to clench his jaw to keep his mouth from dropping open. Stewy is good. Like, really fucking good, which is not at all what Roman was expecting, although now he wonders why not. It makes sense, he guesses, that Stewy can play piano. It doesn’t not make sense, at least. He just never really considered the fact that Stewy has hobbies outside of making shady business deals and fucking.

Roman gets up off the couch and stands near the piano, a safe few feet of distance between him and Stewy. Stewy plays for a moment longer before the song comes to an end, and he looks up at Roman with one eyebrow raised.

“Well?”

“You’re alright,” Roman says, voice measured. 

A small smile tugs at the corner of Stewy’s mouth. “Just alright?”

Roman shrugs. “Yeah. You’re fucking alright, dude.”

“It truly is touching to receive such a compliment from such an expert on the instrument.”

“Fuck off.”

“You like it?”

“What, piano?”

“Yeah.” Stewy nods down at the keys. “Do you like it?”

He tilts his head to one side, then the other. “I mean, it’s fine. I think my mom tried to get Shiv to play when she was like four. Didn’t work out. But it’s, you know, fine. It’s an instrument.”

“I could teach you,” Stewy offers.

“Teach me?”

“Yeah.”

Roman shakes his head quickly. “I’m not, you know… I’m not musically gifted.”

He’s never been artistically talented—none of them have, really. Art isn’t something that anyone in his family does. They appreciate art, maybe (to an extent). But artists as a profession are useless and stupid. Why would anyone waste their lives creating art or music when they could be making money?

He remembers when he came home from school with a self-portrait—one of those ones that every second grader does, with huge ears and spiky hair and yellow skin because that was the only marker color available. Logan had taken it out of his hands and ripped it in half. 

It was a terrible drawing, anyway.

Stewy pulls him out of his thoughts. “Oh, come on. Literally anyone can play piano.”

“Not like _that_ ,” Roman counters, then curses himself for allowing a compliment to slip out.

“Of course not.” Stewy doesn’t even pretend to be humble. It should be annoying. It is annoying. “But I’ve been playing my entire fucking life. If I was still shit, I’d be concerned. And my parents would’ve wasted a lot of money on lessons.”

Roman shrugs. “I just don’t know if it’s really my thing.”

“Just give it a chance,” Stewy pushes. “If you really fucking hate it, you can stop.”

He eyes Stewy carefully. “...fine.”

Stewy smiles. “Sit down.”

Roman perches carefully on the very edge of the bench. Stewy rolls his eyes and slides over, allowing Roman to sit more comfortably without their legs pressing together.

“Alright, see if you can find middle C.”

“Do I look like I know what the fuck—”

“Roman,” Stewy cuts him off. “Alright, look. The staff is divided into two clefs, right? The higher one—that’s treble clef—is on your right, and the lower one, bass, is on your left. The note that connects them is middle C. It’s right—” He takes Roman’s hand, and Roman resists the urge to jump away— “here.” 

Roman presses down on the key, and Stewy takes his hand away. Roman clears his throat. “Okay. Middle C. Got it.”

“You really don’t have to worry about memorizing which key goes with which note. It’s more about learning the placement of them, right? Once you learn how to position your hands, you’ll know what to do without even thinking about it.” 

He plays a few chords. Roman watches his hands. He knows without even trying that he’ll never be able to make it sound as good as Stewy does. He doesn’t even want to attempt it.

“You wanna try a few?” Stewy asks.

“I’m actually good.” Roman stands up quickly and steps away from the piano.

Stewy furrows his eyebrows. “You don’t—”

“I’m good,” he says again. “I—you don’t have to fucking... you know. I’m not—yeah. It’s fine. I don’t want to learn.”

There’s a pause before Stewy says, “Okay.”

Roman lets out a quiet sigh of relief and nods. “Alright, can we just…” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Uh. You know.”

Stewy raises an eyebrow. “Can we _what_ , Ro-Ro?”

Roman’s cheeks heat up. “Fuck off. You know what I mean.” 

Stewy turns around on the piano bench and crosses his arms over his chest. There’s a playful glint in his eyes and a smirk on his lips. Roman does his best to glare, but it doesn’t last very long.

“I’m afraid I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Stewy.” He tries not to make it a whine, but it comes out that way anyway.

“C’mere,” Stewy says. Roman steps forward, and Stewy grabs his belt loops and pulls him closer. “Good?”

Roman nods. His heart races in his chest. It always does. It doesn’t matter how many times they do this. His heart always pounds, his hands always sweat, his thoughts always fly around his brain at a million miles an hour. He tries to shut them off. It never works.

Stewy stands, pulls Roman in closer, and kisses him. Roman makes a soft noise against his mouth, and he feels Stewy smile. It almost annoys him. He hates how much pleasure Stewy gets out of this, even though he knows it’s the only reason that either of them is even doing it. He would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy himself. (He’d never tell Stewy he was enjoying himself, but that’s a whole other issue). But sometimes Stewy just gets so cocky about it that it makes Roman want to shove him out the window.

Suddenly, he’s getting spun around and pushed backwards, and there’s a piano stabbing him in the back. Roman groans and shoves Stewy off of him, not enough to actually make him step back, but enough to disrupt him.

“What?” Stewy asks.

“Is this one of your fucking fantasies or something?” Roman readjusts himself so that it’s not as painful when Stewy pushes back up against him again. “Fucking someone against a piano?”

Stewy laughs as he leans in to press a kiss to Roman’s neck. “Who said anyone was getting fucked against a piano?”

Roman rolls his eyes and tilts his head. Stewy kisses just below his ear, and he holds in a soft gasp. “You’re fucking insufferable, you little prick.”

“You love it.”

He makes a gagging noise. “Disgusting.”

Stewy grins against his skin, kisses his neck again, then pulls back. Roman silently curses himself for shivering. Stewy raises an eyebrow. “You seem to be enjoying yourself just fine.”

“A real gentleman would take me to his fucking bedroom, douchebag.”

“I never claimed to be a gentleman.” Stewy kisses him. 

Roman rolls his eyes, but he kisses back. It’s impossible not to. He’s tried before. It never lasts long, not when Stewy is pushing up against him and grabbing his hips the way he is right now. Roman wraps his arms around Stewy’s neck, tangling his fingers in his hair. He tugs lightly, and Stewy makes a noise against his mouth.

“Stewy,” he mutters, pulling back. Stewy whines and leans back in, but Roman turns his head. “Bedroom.”

“Fine,” Stewy huffs. “Fucking prude.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Not nearly as much fun.” 

Stewy steps back, pulling Roman towards the bedroom with him. Roman resists for a few steps in an attempt to prove a point, but he gives in as soon as Stewy looks back at him with a raised eyebrow and a slight pout.

He’s a sucker for Stewy’s mouth. So what? Anyone would be.

He lets Stewy guide him into the bedroom, then pull him back in and kiss him again. Roman sighs against Stewy’s lips as Stewy wraps his arms back around him, settling his hands on the small of Roman’s back. He kisses Roman’s jaw, then down his neck. Roman tilts his head to the side. There are goosebumps on his arms.

It’s not that he hates that he enjoys this, but he kind of does. It’s just fucking weird, is the thing. It’s still fucking weird. It was weird the first time, and it’s weird now, but it still feels good. It actually feels good. He can finally admit that, at the very least. 

Sex with Stewy feels good, and Roman doesn’t hate himself as much as he usually does once it’s over. 

He still hates himself. Just not quite as much.

“Roman,” Stewy whispers against his neck.

“Hm?”

“Stop thinking.” 

He lets out a breath and feels Stewy smile. 

“Good?” Stewy asks.

Roman nods, and Stewy kisses him slowly. Roman tries not to think too much. 

Stewy pulls back a hair and whispers, “Good boy,” and any thought Roman had flies out the window as he grabs onto Stewy’s shirt and kisses him back. 

* * *

“You’re going to Scotland, right?”

“Mhm.” Roman stretches out his arms, then flops back onto the mattress. “Big fucking party thing for my dad.”

“Sounds fun.”

He rolls his eyes. “No, it actually sounds like hell. Which it probably will be.”

“You ever been?”

“To Scotland?” He shrugs. “Not really, no. We spent time in England. I think we went once or twice when I was really fucking young, but I can’t remember shit. My dad isn’t exactly desperate to go back.”

“Why not?”

“Bad memories, I guess? Jesus, what’s with all the fucking questions?” 

“Just wondering, Rome. Making conversation.”

Stewy reaches a hand out and brushes a piece of hair out of Roman’s face. Roman flinches. Stewy withdraws his hand. Roman doesn’t want him to stop. He doesn’t say so.

“I should go,” he says carefully.

Stewy rolls over and grabs his phone off the nightstand. Roman studies the muscles in Stewy’s back, the bumps of his spine, the three freckles that form a triangle on the small of his back just to the left of his hip.

He shakes his head and drags his eyes away.

“It’s late,” Stewy comments. Roman can see that he’s scrolling through his notifications.

“And?”

“Why don’t you just stay?”

It’s an innocent enough proposal. It’s nothing they haven’t done before. Roman has stayed over plenty of times. Each time, Stewy has been careful to stay on the opposite side of the mattress, to keep the pillow talk to a minimum. But still, something about this time feels slightly off.

“I think I’ll go home, freak.” Roman sits up and runs a hand through his hair. “I can take care of myself, you know.”

Stewy puts his phone back down and looks over at Roman. “I know. Just offering, dude.”

Roman swings his legs over the side of the mattress and pushes himself to his feet. He fixes the top few buttons of his shirt, finds his pants discarded in a pile on the floor, and pulls them back on. He can feel Stewy’s eyes on him the entire time.

“Hey, Rome,” Stewy says as Roman reaches the door.

He doesn’t turn around. “What?”

“This was nice.”

“Fuck off.”

“I’ll text you.”

Roman sighs. “Yeah.”

He wants to say he won’t answer next time. He knows he will. 

“Night, man,” he says casually.

“Bye, Rome.”

He shuts the door silently behind him as he leaves.

* * *

He’s not sure how long they’ve been stuck in here. They took away all of their phones; even if they hadn’t, Roman knows his is probably dead by now. It feels like he’s been here for weeks, maybe years, but he knows that’s not possible, unless he’s already dead and this is what hell is. Hell being a hotel conference room would make sense.

But he doesn’t think he’s dead—not yet, at least. He thinks he might be soon.

He’s pretty sure he’s about to die, and he’s thinking about Stewy.

It’s pretty inconvenient, actually.

He should be thinking about what’s going to happen next, about how he can talk his way out of this. He’s always been good at running his mouth. Maybe he can figure out some negotiation to save their asses. Clearly Karl and Laird are going to be no help whatsoever. Karl is having a fucking panic attack.

Roman is surrounded by idiots.

He should be coming up with some master plan. He should be analyzing the situation like his dad would be. He should know how to handle himself.

Instead, he’s thinking about Stewy.

He wouldn’t say he misses Stewy, because he doesn’t. He doesn’t _miss_ Stewy. They don’t miss each other. But Roman finds himself wishing that he had some way to get in contact with him, some way to reach out and let Stewy know that he’s okay but he might be about to die. Not that Stewy would care, he thinks.

Every time he tries to force himself to think of literally anything else, his mind brings him back to the same thing: Stewy’s soft smile, his hand on Roman’s arm, his quiet voice. He’s always so gentle towards Roman. It makes Roman want to hate him even more. He doesn’t want anyone thinking that he can’t take care of himself. He’s a big kid now. He doesn’t need anyone to hold his hand and remind him that he’s a special little boy.

But still, there’s something about it that he doesn’t mind all that much. He wouldn’t say he _likes_ it, but sometimes he doesn’t mind it that much when Stewy puts his hand on his shoulder and asks, “You okay?”

He doesn’t like people thinking he can’t take care of himself, but he doesn’t mind it as much when Stewy checks in on him.

Not that it matters right now. Or at all. It doesn’t matter at all.

He considers asking one of the heavily armed men to shoot him in the face. It wouldn’t solve a lot of problems in general, but at least it would solve Roman’s problems. And then he’ll be dead, so it won’t matter. He eyes the gun in one of the guards’ hands. It would take him out pretty quickly. Maybe if he makes a scene they’ll shoot him without even having to ask.

Karl and Laird are still talking. Roman lets out a heavy sigh and flops back on the chairs he’s shoved together.

If he’s going to be killed, he’d prefer it happen sooner rather than later. It’s the waiting around that’s driving him insane. He wouldn’t object to being murdered. He would object to waiting twenty-two hours before being murdered.

If he’s going to be killed, he really doesn’t want his last thoughts to be about Stewy fucking Hosseini. Last thoughts are supposed to be pleasant. He’s supposed to be thinking about the ocean, or the house in the Hamptons, or his childhood dog or some shit like that. (He didn’t have a childhood dog. His mother didn’t like the idea of some animal getting her furniture all dirty. Sometimes Roman thinks that maybe all of his issues stem from the fact that he never had a dog).

He thinks about Tabitha. He thinks about sending her an apology text as soon as he gets out of here. An apology for what, he’s not quite sure. It just seems like an apology is probably necessary. For a lot of things.

He misses her.

He misses Stewy. 

He curses himself again.

He’s going to die in a hotel conference room in Turkey, surrounded by a bunch of businesspeople. And Karl and Laird. It’s a pretty disappointing ending, but maybe he shouldn’t have expected any differently.

He imagines the headlines if he’s actually killed. He wonders if people will care. Most of the world doesn’t give a shit about him (and good for them). Of the ones who do give a shit about him, probably around ninety percent absolutely despise him. Five percent tolerate him, whether that’s because they actually don’t hate him or because they know if they tolerate him for long enough, they might be able to get something out of it.

The other five percent is a toss-up. He guesses his family falls into that category. They do some of the time, at least. But usually that’s just when he’s doing something to purposely get their attention. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter what he does. Their expectations for him are so fucking low that any minor accomplishment would exceed them.

A minor accomplishment, like getting out of this damn hotel alive.

Roman groans and covers his face with his hands. His fight or flight instinct still hasn’t turned off. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. There’s nothing he can do about it right now. If he’s going to be killed, he’s going to be killed. All he can do is wait.

He doesn’t think he actually falls asleep—it definitely doesn’t feel like he has—but suddenly Laird is shaking his shoulder and telling him to get up. Roman blinks in confusion and sits up, rubbing his eyes. They’re still in the conference room. He thinks it might be nighttime, but he can’t really tell.

Eduard is standing a few feet in front of him. Roman scrambles to sit up straighter, putting his feet back on the ground. 

“All good?” Eduard asks.

“ _All good?_ ” Roman repeats incredulously. “What the fuck—”

“Listen,” Eduard says, voice steady and soothing. “It’s fine. This is all going to be fine, alright?”

“Eduard, what the fuck? I fucking—I fucking trusted you, man.” He tries not to sound hurt. 

“Have I given you a reason to not trust me anymore?”

Roman looks around the room, then meets Eduard’s eyes. Eduard has nice eyes. Roman forces that thought out of his head.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right?”

“I know how it looks, but—”

“Do you?”

“I know how it looks,” Eduard repeats, “but everything is perfectly fine.”

“It doesn’t feel perfectly fine.” He glances at Karl, who is breathing heavily again. “Dear fucking God, Karl, do you need a Xanax?”

“Do you have one?”

“Jesus Christ,” Roman mutters. He runs a hand through his hair and winces at how gross it feels, then wipes his hand on his pants. “Alright,” he says to Eduard, “can you tell me what the fuck is going on and whether or not I’m allowed to leave?”

“It’s all good,” Eduard reassures him, but he still looks slightly nervous. 

Roman doesn’t feel like it’s all good. He looks around at the people nearby and wonders whether they’re as terrified as he is. They have to be, right? This is not a normal fucking scenario. Roman feels like he’s on the verge of a panic attack. Fuck Karl—if Roman had any meds with him, he’d need them for himself.

Suddenly, a loud voice comes over the crowd of people, and everyone falls silent. “Foreign nationals, please identify yourselves.”

“Oh, fuck,” Roman whispers. His chances of death just skyrocketed.

“Oh my God,” Karl mutters. He raises his hand. The others follow suit.

A group of men approaches them. One of them fixes his eyes on Roman and asks, “Roman Roy?”

Roman gulps and nods. “Uh, yup.” 

“Follow me, please.”

Roman spares another glance at Eduard, who nods. “It’ll be fine.”

“You better hope to God you’re fucking right,” Roman tells him.

He lets himself be led out of the room and sends up his own silent prayer.

* * *

They stick him in a room with a shrink. Roman doesn’t want to talk.

The woman seems nice enough—they always do. They’re polite, and conversational, and act like they’re not poking and prodding and digging for any hint of a behavior that would explain to them why Roman is the way he is.

Roman knows exactly why he is the way he is. He’s not going to share that shit with a therapist.

He answers all of her questions in the most casual way that he can, refusing to allow her any insights. He’s fine. He’s doing fine. Yes, he was scared. Yes, he feared for his life. Yes, it was fucking freaky. Yes, he’s a little apprehensive about going back to Turkey any time soon.

She asks him what he was thinking about when they were being held hostage. He forces out a laugh and answers, “I was thinking that I was about to die. Should I have been thinking about something else?”

She tries pushing a little more. Roman doesn’t give in.

He doesn’t mention Stewy. He never does. It’s best for everyone, most of all himself, if that’s a topic that’s never breached.

Thankfully, it’s not much longer until they’re taking him out to the boat, and he’s being surrounded by people who push and poke at him and make stupid fucking jokes, and he’s not in the mood for any of it. He snaps. They back off. 

For the next few hours, Roman drifts around the decks of the yacht, jumping into conversations and picking up glass after glass of champagne. He should be relaxing. He should feel okay at this point. He doesn’t. He doesn’t mention that to anyone. 

He tries to explain to his dad why he doesn’t think the deal is real. It didn’t make sense—the entire situation scrambled his brain, but Roman knows when people are bullshitting him. People have been bullshitting him his entire life. He’s smarter than that at this point. 

They don’t have many options left on the table. Roman knows that. They’re fucked.

He doesn’t sleep well that night, despite the soothing sounds of the waves outside his window. The water splashing against the side of the boat just makes him feel as if he’s drowning, and there’s no one around to pull him back out. It’s hard to breathe.

It’s sick, really, the way they discuss the sacrifice. Roman knows that his dad is doing this on purpose. Logan is trying to see who’s going to defend who and who’s going to be left to the sharks. Roman knows it’s not going to be him. He’s safe—for now. He’s not a big enough target. They wouldn’t be satisfied with Roman’s head on a stake. It has to be someone else.

He doesn’t want it to be Shiv or Kendall. They didn’t do anything. Their hands are clean. It shouldn’t be them. 

He won’t let it be Gerri. Besides knowing the optics would be shit, he feels a sort of protectiveness over her. She’s looked out for him in the past. It’s the least he can do for her now.

It could be any combination of lower-ranked goons. It could be Tom. It should be Tom, he thinks. Sure, the guy got a bad fucking draw, the way everything was dumped on him, but he was the one who destroyed evidence. His hands are dirty. They could sacrifice him.

And why not throw in Greg, too? Greg works for Tom. (Roman thinks. He’s not really sure how that whole hierarchy works anymore. It’s just fucking weird. He tries not to think about it too much).

It won’t be Roman. It won’t be Shiv. If they go with Tom, they have to throw someone else in there, too. If Roman is honest with himself, he really doesn’t want to see anyone go down for this. It’s not their fault, for the most part. They were all just doing what they were told.

It should be Logan. That’s out of the question. It won’t be. But it should be. 

Roman doesn’t dare say it.

As he glances up and down the table, he wonders who here would throw him overboard without even thinking about it. He wonders how quickly he’d be chosen for slaughter if he had even the slightest more involvement in the whole thing. He figures it’d be a pretty quick decision.

Everyone is stressed out and testy towards one another. With one conversation, Logan managed to turn them all against each other, to prove that no one on this boat can trust anyone else. Roman was ahead of the curve on that one. 

When Logan makes the announcement, Roman knows Kendall isn’t okay. Roman can’t even be happy about his promotion—he knows it’s bullshit, he knows it’s just another test. He knows it’s his dad’s way of hurting Kendall even further. Shiv, too. It doesn’t feel like Roman has earned it. He had one lucky situation where his instincts served him well. He doesn’t think that means he’s fit to run a company. 

Kendall and Greg leave, and Roman wanders the ship again, waiting. He wants to text Stewy. He doesn’t. He stares at their previous texts, considers a hundred different messages, locks his phone, and puts it back into his pocket.

Logan doesn’t speak after the press conference. Roman thinks he should run away before the anger that’s building up inside of his dad finds its way out.

He’s under strict orders not to say a goddamn thing to anyone. They haven’t worked out their response plan yet, and one wrong word could destroy it all before they even get a chance. There’s a lot of closed-door meetings going on. So far, Roman hasn’t been invited into any of them. His skills aren’t exactly needed at this point, he figures. He’s not particularly useful.

The sun is beating down on the deck of the yacht, and it burns his feet when he walks across it. He sits down on one of the couches and puts his feet up.

Roman punches Kendall’s contact. Kendall picks up on the second ring.

“What the fuck?” Roman asks, before Kendall even has the chance to say hello.

“You’re gonna tell me that you wouldn’t have done the same thing? If it had been you?”

Roman pauses for half a second. 

“No, I wouldn’t have.”

He wonders if he would have. If it had been him instead of Kendall. He wonders if he would have done it in the same way Kendall had, if he would have taken the chance to light the place on fire and bring his father down with it. 

He wants to say he would have. He doesn’t think he has the spine for it.

And now he’s on the wrong side of it, anyway.

But he never would have thought that Kendall had the spine for it, either. He wouldn’t have put it past Shiv, past Gerri—hell, he wouldn’t have even put it past Frank. But none of them had done it. Kendall had. And Roman is more shocked by the fact that it was Kendall than by the fact that it happened at all.

“You really fucked us over on that one,” he says.

“Fucked us over? Or fucked Dad over?”

“It’s really kind of the same thing, isn’t it?”

“It’s not. It doesn’t have to be.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Roman snaps. “This isn’t a fucking Shakespeare play, Ken. This is our actual lives. Our reputations. Our inheritance.”

“Are you saying that because it’s actually what you think, or because it’s what you think you should think?”

“Fuck you.” 

“You’re not really mad at me, Rome.”

Roman laughs humorlessly. “Why the fuck wouldn’t I be mad at you? You fucking—you—you fucked us here, Ken. You fucked us with a fucking—with a fucking cactus dildo. Fuck!”

He runs a hand through his hair and curses a few more times. There’s a noise nearby, and he pauses his pacing for a second. He waits until he’s certain there’s no one listening. 

“What the fuck?” he asks again, softer this time.

“I did what I had to do.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, that’s some fucking bullshit. You did this because you wanted to be the hero. You wanted to be the important one. So you fucking—you threw us all under the bus so that everyone would be falling at your fucking feet and begging to suck your dick.”

“This has nothing to do with you.” Kendall’s voice is emotionless. He’s good at that. “It has nothing to do with you, or Shiv, or Tom, or Gerri. This is about Dad, Rome. That’s it.”

“Yeah, well, by sticking a fucking knife in his back you got the rest of us bloody too.”

“Okay, well, uh—”

“ _Okay, well, uh,_ ” Roman mocks. “Is fucking Greg there?”

There’s some rustling on the other end, a few whispers. “Uh, no.”

“Bullshit. Let me talk to him.”

“He’s not here.”

“Fucking put me on speaker then, asswipe. Just in case he fucking happens to be in earshot.”

There’s some more muttering. Roman pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a long breath. He’s going to kill Kendall. He’s going to wrap his hands around Kendall’s stupid little throat and strangle the life right out of him. 

“Ken,” he says coldly. “Are you even gonna fucking try to explain yourself?”

“Is Dad with you?”

“Is Dad with—no, Dad is not fucking with me.” He pauses for a second. “It’s just me. I wanted to—look, asshole, I wanted to—I wanted to get your side of the story, alright? I just want to know—I gotta know why, Ken.”

“Why does it matter to you?”

“Because you’re my brother and I care about you?”

“That’s bullshit.”

It stings a tiny bit, but Roman knows that he would have said the same if Kendall had tried that line on him.

“Just tell me why.”

“Because I’m not gonna stand around and let this happen anymore,” Kendall says. “Because I’m not gonna take the blame for something that Dad did. I’m not gonna let anyone else take the fall when everything that happened was his fault.”

“It wasn’t _all_ —”

“It was.”

Roman sighs. “Right.”

“This was for me, Rome. I had to.”

“Dad’s gonna kill you.”

“So?” Kendall sounds unbothered, but there’s a tiny quiver in his voice that gives him away.

“Just a heads up. As a courtesy.”

“Thanks.” 

“No problem.”

Roman looks out over the water and takes a breath. He hears Kendall do the same.

“I’m sorry,” Kendall says. “To you—you and Shiv. I really am.” 

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You don’t have to believe me. But I am.”

He shakes his head. “I gotta go. Gotta figure out a way to clean up the fucking mess you made, douchebag.”

“Roman, I—”

He hangs up before Kendall has a chance to finish. He drops the phone onto the couch next to him and lets out a soft groan. 

He doesn’t need to tell anyone else that he talked to Kendall. There’s a part of him telling him that he needs to protect him. He doesn’t like that part of himself, that voice that reminds him to do the right thing. But he listens to it anyway. Sometimes.

His phone lights up with a notification. He grabs it and curses under his breath.

From Stewy: _Saw the press conference. Holy. Shit._

Roman stares at the message for a moment before he replies.

_did you know?_

The typing bubble pops up and stays there for a suspiciously long time. Roman glances out over the water. There’s a sailboat going by a few hundred yards out. When he looks back down at his phone, there’s a response.

_No._

He’s usually pretty good at telling when he’s being lied to. For the moment, though, he doesn’t think it’s worth figuring out. If Kendall and Stewy had some secret master plan that Roman didn’t know anything about, then, well, it’s none of his business, he guesses. Clearly, if Stewy knew something, he chose deliberately not to talk to Roman about it.

It would hurt if he was surprised by the possibility.

 _I’m still around,_ is Stewy’s next text.

_ok? why would i care_

_If you wanted to come see me_

Roman rolls his eyes. _go fuck urself_

_I didn’t mean like that._

Another text comes in a few seconds later: _You may have forgotten but I AM a pretty good businessman. I could be useful._

He wants to send back a snarky retort, something that’ll get Stewy to shut up for the next few hours, but he can’t come up with anything.

He hates when Stewy’s right.

 _give me some time,_ he sends. _I’ll text_

Stewy replies with the thumbs up emoji. Roman rolls his eyes again, then locks his phone and slides it into his pocket. He pushes himself up out of the chair and heads towards the pool, where he knows Shiv and Tom are. He can hear Tom talking from here—he’s pretty sure he’s threatening to do some unspeakable things to Greg. But that’s nothing new.

It’s not like Roman is going to share any strategy or top-secret information with Stewy. He’s not that stupid. But, he admits, it could be useful to get an outsider’s opinion. And Stewy knows Kendall—even if they don’t exactly trust each other, Roman is pretty sure that Stewy understands Kendall better than he does. Maybe there could be something helpful there.

It’s a laughable concept. Roman doesn’t care. There’s got to be some way out of this, and if Stewy is the way out, then fuck it. Stewy is the way out. Roman hasn’t been caught sleeping with the enemy yet. He can risk one more meeting.

* * *

For the moment, everyone is acting surprisingly normal. He hasn’t seen his dad in several hours, but that’s not out of the ordinary, either. He knows that he’s probably not going to be needed for a while.

Roman carefully approaches the lounge chair that Gerri is sitting in, staring at her laptop. He sits down on the edge of it.

“Gerri,” he says quietly, glancing around. “I need you to cover for me, okay?”

She gives him a disapproving look over the top of her sunglasses. “What are you getting yourself into?”

“Nothing.” He knows Gerri is good at sniffing out bullshit, but he doesn’t think that lie could have even convinced Greg.

“Then there’s no reason for me to cover for you.” Gerri leans back in her chair and turns her face towards the sun.

Roman groans. “Can I just—I need, like, one fucking hour. Maybe two.”

“For what?”

“That’s not important.”

“Then no.”

He holds in another groan. “Please?” he asks, being careful not to make it into a whine. “I really—I really fucking just—just a few hours.”

“Just tell me what you’re going to do.” She turns her head back towards him, and Roman gets the feeling that she’s running through a million scenarios in her head. Sometimes it’s annoying that Gerri is such a cold, calculating bitch.

“I’m meeting with someone,” he tries casually.

“Who?”

“Gerri, come on.” He’s getting desperate at this point.

“Are you trying to kill the company too?”

“No! Jesus.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m just—I’m getting advice, alright? Trying to get an outside view. I’m not gonna—I won’t fucking squeal about anything. Scout’s honor.” He puts his hand over his heart.

He thinks Gerri rolls her eyes, but it’s hard to tell with the sunglasses. She pauses for a moment, and Roman’s hopes fall even further. Finally, she sighs. “Fine. I can cover for you for a few hours.”

“Thank you so fucking—”

“But if anything goes wrong,” she interrupts, “it’s on you. Not me. I’ll cover, but I’m not taking the fall for you.”

“Deal.” He gets up. “Love you, Gerri.”

“Oh, fuck off.” She waves him away, then lays back and takes a sip of her drink. Roman presses his palms together and bows to her. She raises an eyebrow, nods. “Get the fuck out of here before they start asking questions.” 

Roman follows her orders. He slips past Tom, who is pacing back and forth muttering under his breath, and calls one of their guys to bring him a boat.

He texts Stewy: _see u soon_

* * *

The spot Stewy picked out, a bougie place right on the water, is packed with people enjoying their late lunch. Roman glances around, wishing he had figured out some way to hide his identity better, but no one seems to be paying attention to him.

He spots Stewy sitting at a table near the railing. His breath catches in his throat. He immediately curses himself. Now is not the fucking time to get worked up over Stewy or his stupid hair or stupid beard or stupid warm, tan skin that’s glowing in the afternoon light. Roman pushes all of it out of his mind.

“Hey,” Stewy says casually, lifting his glass up to his lips.

“Don’t ‘hey’ me, motherfucker.”

Stewy raises an eyebrow. “Is there another greeting you would prefer I use?”

Roman sits down across from him. “I don’t have a lot of time, so let’s make this fucking quick, alright?”

“Isn’t that your specialty?” He can see a hint of a smirk behind the glass as Stewy takes a sip.

“Fuck you.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“Suck a—” Roman cuts himself off and breathes out through his nose. “Look, douchebag, I’m not really in the mood for—”

“Good afternoon, sir,” a smiling waitress interrupts. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“You really should try something, dude,” Stewy says. “It’s all fantastic.” He gives the woman a winning smile. It makes Roman want to puke.

Roman shoots Stewy a glare, but he doesn’t flinch. Stewy shakes his head at the waitress, who quickly disappears. He places his glass back down on the table and leans back in his chair, looking at Roman expectantly.

“Did you know?” Roman asks.

“Jesus,” Stewy huffs. “No, Roman. I didn’t know a goddamn thing.”

“Not like you would’ve warned me anyway.”

Stewy considers it for a moment, then shrugs. “You might be right.”

“You didn’t know about it.”

“No.” Stewy shakes his head. “Kendall… Kendall doesn’t exactly call me anymore, you know.”

Roman resists the urge to roll his eyes. He truly could not give less of a shit about Kendall and Stewy’s floundering bromance. They’ve been like this since they were teenagers. It always ends up working out in the end—whether because they’re good friends or because they’re both stupid as hell, Roman can never be completely sure.

“What’s your plan?” Stewy asks. 

“Like I’m gonna tell you.”

“Rome—”

“Fuck off unless you’re actually going to say something useful.”

“Need I remind you that _you’re_ the one who came to _me_?”

“You—” He stops. It’s not worth the fight. He reaches across the table and grabs Stewy’s glass. Stewy doesn’t protest as he takes a sip. Roman tilts his head. Stewy was right. It’s good. He places the glass back down.

“This could actually be good for you, Rome.”

“How?”

“You didn’t know. Kendall didn’t—he didn’t fuck you _all_ over. At least not yet. Your dad, yeah, he’s fucked. Hopefully. But you?” He looks Roman over. Roman feels like curling in on himself. He stands his ground. “You didn’t have anything to do with any of the cover-ups.” Roman nods in confirmation. “So you could still come out on top. Ken left you a way out.”

Roman drags his eyes away from Stewy and looks out over the water. 

He knows Stewy is right. He wants to know whether Kendall did it on purpose. He thinks back over the press conference, over what Kendall had said, over the documents that Kendall and Greg had provided. Roman hadn’t dirtied his hands with any of it. It was all Logan, and, of course, Tom. Logan and Tom. They can afford to lose Tom. He never did shit for them anyway. 

He doesn’t think they can afford to lose his dad, but what the fuck does he know? Clearly he isn’t in a place to take over as CEO if Logan goes down. Logan would probably rather have Shiv anyway.

There’s no plan yet. Roman is just spitballing. But he knows Shiv has more of a chance than he ever will.

“Rome.”

“What?”

“How are you feeling?” Stewy almost sounds genuinely concerned.

_I’m recovering from almost being killed, my dad tried to kill Kendall, and Kendall fucked our entire company. How the fuck do you think I’m feeling?_

Roman shrugs. “You know.”

Stewy taps his finger absentmindedly on the rim of his glass. When he picks it up to take another sip, the ice cubes clink against each other. Roman keeps looking out at the water. It’s clear and sparkly blue, a picture-perfect view, like they’re living inside a postcard. 

Half of Roman is telling him to say _fuck it_ and throw it all away. He could live here forever, never have to worry about anything ever again. He wouldn’t be questioned about his family, about the business, about the hundreds of people who ended up injured or dead because of his father’s choices.

He doesn’t like feeling guilty. He knows it’s not his fault—it would be impossible for it to be his fault. He’s never been involved in any of that shit. But there’s a guilt that comes along simply from being connected to it. It’s been gnawing away at him since Argestes, since he first found out about all of it. He’s managed to push it away so far, but it feels like it’s finally hit a nerve.

“I want to do it better,” he finally says. “I think. I want to fucking…” 

“What do you mean?”

Roman looks down at the table. There’s a ring of water left where someone had placed a glass. He takes the cloth napkin in front of him and dries it.

“All of this shit, the fucking—everything that we’ve done. Everything my dad’s done. I want to do it better.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t fucking know. Is it…” He sighs, pulls a leaf from the plant in the middle of the table, tears it into little pieces as he talks. “Is it fucking naive as shit if I say I want to do something good with this? I want—I want to be, you know. Maybe this is my chance.”

“To take over.”

“It’s stupid.”

Stewy tilts his head. “I don’t think so.”

“It’s never gonna happen. He’d go to Shiv first.”

“Yeah, but now Shiv is wrapped up with Tom’s shit.”

Roman shakes his head. “She’d find a way to get herself out of that. She’s been completely separate from the company. There are—there are excuses.”

Stewy shrugs. “Would they fucking believe her, though?”

“Would you?”

There’s a pause. “I don’t know.” Another beat. “If I didn’t know you guys? Yeah. Maybe. If she spun it just right. Maybe, dude.”

Roman sighs. Stewy silently pushes his drink back across the table, and Roman takes a sip. The glass is wet in his hand, condensation cold against his skin. It helps clear his mind, just the slightest amount.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna fucking do,” he admits. “I don’t think any of us know. We’re…” He looks around as if anyone in this place would give a shit about their conversation. “I think we might be fucked. For good.”

“I don’t know.” Stewy takes his drink back. “You’re pretty good at bullshitting your way out of these things.”

Roman can’t tell whether he means the general “you” or Roman specifically. He doesn’t ask. He wants to believe Stewy is addressing him directly. He’s embarrassed by the fact that he wants Stewy to be addressing him just because it sounds like a compliment coming out of Stewy’s mouth. 

At least he can tell that Stewy’s being honest. He’s pretty sure that Stewy’s being honest.

“I didn’t fucking tell you anything, alright?”

Stewy nods. “Sure. Stays between us.”

Roman glances at him suspiciously, but he doesn’t challenge it.

“Hey,” Stewy says, a bit gentler than before. A shiver runs down Roman’s spine. He curses himself.

“What?”

“Text me when you get back to New York, alright?”

“Why would I—”

“Because I want to see you.” Stewy remains nonchalant. Roman does his best to appear the same. “And if you don’t want to see me, then fine, whatever, I can fucking deal with that. But I want to see you, okay?”

“Fucking gross,” Roman mutters.

A small smile comes to Stewy’s lips. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

Roman considers him carefully. He definitely doesn’t seem malicious, but Roman knows exactly how well he can hide his actual intentions when he wants to. There’s a mixture of feelings and thoughts whirling around in his head, and Roman can’t figure out who or what he should listen to, what he should trust.

Part of him is screaming at him not to trust Stewy. Another part is begging him to. 

He thinks maybe Stewy is begging him to.

“Okay,” he says hesitantly. “Yeah. Fine. I’ll text you.”

“I’m honored.” Stewy glances around, then focuses his gaze back on Roman. “Hey, will you just make sure…” He clears his throat. “Look out for yourself, alright?”

“Will you let me know if Kendall reaches out?”

Stewy shrugs. “I doubt he will.”

“If he does.”

A small sigh. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Good.”

“Just be careful, Rome.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Roman pushes his chair back from the table and stands up. He opens his mouth, but he’s not sure what else he wants to say. Instead, he reaches out his hand. Stewy looks at it with slight surprise, but he takes it and shakes. Just before he lets go, he gives Roman’s hand a light squeeze and taps his index finger against the inside of his wrist.

“I’ll see you, dude,” Stewy says. 

Roman nods and walks away from the table, weaving his way through other chairs to get to the exit. As he leaves, he can still feel Stewy’s eyes on him. He doesn’t turn around.

* * *

He’s still barely in on the conversations. It doesn’t seem to matter to anyone that he’s COO, least of all his dad. He’s useless to them. He tries, sure, but he’s useless.

He spends a lot of time alone in his office. He spends a lot of time alone at his apartment. He spends a lot of time showing up at Stewy’s door and begging silently to be let in.

Stewy lets him in every time.

Roman tries not to think about what it means.

Stewy is playing piano again. Roman hadn’t asked, not this time, but Stewy had started playing anyway—a piece that’s soft but upbeat, one that Roman is pretty sure he just started learning, because every once in a while, his fingers stumble over a few notes. Roman doesn’t care.

When the song is over, Stewy pours them each a glass of wine and sits down carefully on the opposite end of the couch. Roman pulls his feet up onto the cushion, resting his arm over his knees.

“How are you doing?” Stewy asks.

Roman shrugs. “I’m… I’m doing.”

His life is a fucking mess. It’s not anything new.

“Roman.”

“Hm?”

“I just wanna say I’m, uh, you know…” Stewy clears his throat. “I wanna be here for you, alright?”

“Yeah, okay.” Roman snorts. “You can fuck off.”

Stewy looks hurt for a fraction of a second, but he recomposes himself quickly. “I meant it.”

“I don’t need you to look out for me, alright?” he snaps, harsher than intended. “I don’t know where you got this idea that I—that I fucking need you looking over my shoulder, or whatever, but I don’t—I can handle myself, okay?”

“I know you can,” Stewy says calmly. Roman blinks in surprise. “You can handle yourself just fine, dude. I’m not trying to say that you can’t. I’m trying to say…” Stewy takes a breath. “I’ve been thinking a lot. About this. There’s a potential here, I think.” 

“A potential,” Roman repeats stupidly. “A potential for _what?_ ”

Stewy is looking at him as if the answer is obvious. Maybe it should be, but Roman doesn’t dare say the first thing that comes to mind. There’s a potential here for a lot of things. He doesn’t want to risk being wrong. He sometimes wishes he could read Stewy’s mind.

“A partnership,” Stewy says, putting his glass down on the coffee table. “I think we work well together. I think we could, you know… we could figure something out.”

“Is this you trying to steal our company out from under us again?” Roman raises an eyebrow, takes a sip of wine. “Because, in case you forgot, it didn’t work so well the first time.”

Because it didn’t work with Kendall, so now Stewy is reduced to coming to Roman for help. Because Roman is always the last choice—his dad’s last choice for CEO, the last choice to negotiate an acquisition to save them, Stewy’s last choice to develop some new master plan to destroy Logan Roy. 

Roman thinks, maybe, if Stewy had come to him the first time around, they wouldn’t be in this position. Roman wouldn’t have let the vote fail. He would have been better than Kendall.

He would have been given a chance to prove himself as the stronger dog.

He may be Stewy’s last choice, but Stewy may be his last chance.

“I really think we could do this, Roman.” Stewy’s voice is careful, but there’s an earnestness underneath it that makes Roman want to believe him. “I think you could do this. I don’t think—look, dude…” He tilts his head, regards Roman intensely. “They underestimate you. But I think, if you wanted it, you could do it.”

“CEO?”

“Maybe. Or maybe just…” He drags his index finger across his throat. “Kendall put all of the pieces into place. I think you and I could bring it down for good.”

Roman sets his glass down, then sits back and lets Stewy’s words sink in. He’s suddenly aware of the emptiness of the room, the lifelessness of it. He’s suddenly incredibly aware of Stewy sitting too close to him. He’s suddenly aware of how badly he wants Stewy to reach out and touch him.

_You and I._

“Let me think about it,” he says cautiously. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Stewy says quickly. “It’s a lot. I know. I just wanted to put the possibility out there. Because, Roman, look…” He clears his throat. “I don’t think they see you coming. Whatever you decide to do, it’s—it’s gonna be, you know.” He shakes his head as if he isn’t certain of the words that are coming out of his mouth. “You could take over, and you—you’d be okay. With a little help, yeah, but you could fucking—you could do it. But if you decide to bring it down, I think it’s done for. For good.” 

Roman stares down at his hands. His fingernails are chewed down to basically nothing, but he picks at them anyway. His watch is uncomfortably snug around his wrist. There’s a scratch across the knuckles on his left hand. He traces his thumb over it.

He wants to believe him. He doesn’t think he can. He can’t believe anyone who tells him that kind of shit, because they’ve never been right before. Roman isn’t cut out for this. Stewy is a liar, and they both know it.

“Roman.” Stewy’s voice is quiet. “You don’t have to decide now. Just think about it, alright?”

He swallows dryly and nods. “Sure.”

“Rome.”

“Yeah.”

“Look at me.”

Roman shakes his head. Stewy reaches out and slides his hand over Roman’s. Roman turns his hand palm up, and Stewy locks their fingers together. Roman keeps staring. His heart is beating in his throat. Stewy taps his fingers against the back of Roman’s hand as if he’s playing a melody, as if Roman’s hand is the piano keys. If he concentrates hard enough, he can hear music.

He doesn’t know what he wants.

He thinks he should want his father dead. 

He thinks he wants his father dead.

He can’t be the one to kill him.

But Stewy could be.

“Roman,” Stewy says again.

Roman still can’t look at him. Stewy lifts Roman’s hand to his mouth, presses a soft kiss to the back of it. Roman closes his eyes.

“What do you need?” Stewy asks. Roman can barely hear him over the rushing in his ears.

Need. Want. It’s all the same thing, really. 

Roman opens his eyes for just long enough to pull Stewy in and kiss him.

Normally, kissing Stewy feels like an out-of-body experience, like he’s watching it from above and not actually participating. This time, it feels as if Stewy’s lips are the only thing keeping him grounded in reality. 

Stewy’s hand is warm in his. His other hand comes up around the back of Roman’s neck, pulling him in closer. Roman lets him. 

He needs this. He needs Stewy. That much is obvious. That much he’s sure of. Everything else, he can figure out later.

* * *

Stewy’s room is dark. It eases Roman’s headache.

Stewy is laying on the opposite side of the mattress, asleep. His chest moves slowly up and down, the sheets down over his stomach. Roman tries not to stare. He stares anyway. 

He tries not to think about all of it too much. He ends up thinking about it anyway, because of course he does, because how could he not? It’s all a bit too fucking much. Stewy is a bit too much, but he can’t bring himself to stop coming back. 

It’s a terrible idea—it has been from the beginning. He still can’t understand why it ever happened in the first place, why he let Stewy kiss him, why he didn’t just punch him in the fucking face and run away and never get caught up in any of it. He can’t figure out how Stewy managed to grab him and pull him in and keep him in place, when Roman has spent his entire life bouncing from person to person until they get bored of him, until they no longer want to deal with his bullshit, until he succeeds in driving them away so that he can move on with his own lonesome life and no longer have to think about anyone but himself. 

This time, it’s different. He doesn’t know if he likes it. He isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about it—about the fact that it’s a guy, about the fact that it’s _Stewy_ , about the fact that for so long he had just assumed that he was broken in some fundamental way, that there was something wrong with him that wasn’t going to be fixed. 

There’s still something broken about him, but the edges don’t cut as deeply anymore.

There’s something broken about him, something broken about his life, something broken about his very existence on this godforsaken earth. He doesn’t know if it’s fixable. He thinks that maybe this is the key to trying.

The more he thinks about it—all of it, from himself to Stewy to Kendall to his dad to everything they’ve covered up all this time, the more he thinks he’s beginning to finally understand. 

He gets it. He gets why Kendall did it.

He would’ve done it, too.

He wishes he had done it instead. He wishes he could’ve been the sacrifice, the head on the stake, the big enough reward to satisfy the press. He wishes it could have been him up there.

It would have made it all a lot easier.

If it had been him, he wouldn’t be struggling with what the fuck he’s going to do next. He wouldn’t be forced to think about whether he’s going to stab his dad in the back, whether he’s going to say fuck it all and cut every tie. 

He still has plausible deniability. As far as the public knows, he had nothing to do with the cover-ups, because he didn’t. And they can’t exactly throw him to the wolves now, not after what Kendall did.

This could be it. This could be his way out.

Stewy could be his way out. Roman doesn’t know if he trusts him enough to let him. 

He wants to trust him. He wants to believe that Stewy is in this for real, that Stewy is going to let him do what he needs to do, that Stewy will be there when he needs it. He doesn’t want to need Stewy. It’s just a safety net. Just in case.

He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a moment, opens them again.

“Stewy,” he says quietly. Stewy shifts slightly and makes a soft noise. Roman tries again, a bit louder. “Stewy.” 

Stewy’s eyes flutter open, and he looks at Roman in alarm. “You okay?” he asks quickly.

Roman nods. “Yeah. Fuck, sorry, I didn’t want to—you can go back to sleep, it’s not—”

“No, no.” Stewy sits up and rubs his eyes. “I’m up. I’m good. You okay?” 

“Yeah.” He lets out a breath. “I’m—it’s okay.”

Stewy is eyeing him carefully. “What’s up?”

“Can you—can you be fucking honest with me? For one second?”

He thinks he sees a hint of concern in Stewy’s expression. It makes his stomach twist.

Stewy nods slowly. “Yeah.”

“Is this about Kendall?”

“What?”

“This—all of this bullshit, everything—everything you’ve done, everything we’ve done, is it… is it just about Kendall?” The words are rushed, but now that they’re coming out, he can’t stop them. “Is this just you trying to get Kendall back? Or make him—make him like you again, or fucking—fucking I don’t know. Whatever the fuck you two had going on, whatever—” He waves his hands helplessly. “I don’t—I just need to know. I need to know whether this is a fucking—whether this is actually something or—” He cuts himself off. He can’t finish what he wants to say.

The silence between them drags on. Roman’s mouth is dry. He’s never felt this stupid in his entire goddamn life.

He ruins everything.

He should have just taken this at face value. He shouldn’t have forced himself to think about Stewy’s ulterior motives. He shouldn’t have reminded himself of the fact that no one has ever wanted him like this and no one ever will. He should have let himself be fooled.

He ruins everything good that’s ever been handed to him because he’s never deserved it, not any of it. And he knows he doesn’t deserve Stewy. It’s all going to come crashing down eventually. It might as well be now.

Finally, Stewy speaks. “No.”

“Don’t bullshit me,” Roman snaps.

“I’m not.” Stewy’s voice is steady, but there’s something underneath it, something that Roman can’t figure out. “None of this is about Kendall. Maybe—look, maybe at the very start. But that was different, okay?”

“Fuck off.” He clenches his jaw and looks away. “Fuck you.”

“You asked me to be honest with you,” Stewy reminds him. “I’m being honest.” 

“For the first time in your fucking life.”

“No.” 

He hates how calm Stewy is. He wants Stewy to get mad. He wants Stewy to scream, to snap at him, to hit him. He wants Stewy to react in a way he can respond to.

Stewy takes a breath. “Roman.”

Roman doesn’t answer.

“Rome, look.” Stewy pauses for a second. “I’ve never fucking lied to you about anything, alright? I’ve—yeah, I’ve done a lot of shit. But not once have I ever fucking lied to you. I’ve never lied about any of it.”

Roman finds it difficult to believe. But somehow he knows that, once again, Stewy is telling the truth. It just makes him angrier. He doesn’t want Stewy to be this honest with him all the time. Roman doesn’t think he can take it.

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Stewy says. “That’s not my game. Do you really not believe that I’m being honest here?”

Roman shrugs.

Stewy lets out a long breath. “This isn’t about Kendall. It’s not.” 

“But it—”

“It was,” Stewy finishes for him. “Back when we—with the whole bear hug and everything, yeah. That was about him. But it’s not—it’s not like that, alright? Clearly he doesn’t need me anymore. I’m not fucking—I’m not trying to fuck you over, Rome. I’m not using you to get to him. I swear to you. This isn’t… this isn’t that.”

Roman wants to believe that he’s lying. He knows Stewy is telling the truth.

“It’s not about him.” Stewy reaches out towards him, and Roman flinches. Stewy withdraws his hand. “I don’t know how you want me to fucking prove it to you, but I swear. It’s not about him and me.”

“Then what the fuck is it about?” Roman sounds weak, even to his own ears. “What’s your fucking game, then? What the fuck is in it for you?”

Stewy laughs, but there’s not much humor behind it. “In case you haven’t noticed, I kind of fucking hate your dad, Rome.” 

“That’s not all this is about.” 

Stewy shrugs. “This is… fuck, Roman.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I don’t know, okay? I can’t—I can’t explain exactly what this is or why—why it’s you. But we… we kind of fucking make sense together, don’t we?” It’s a rhetorical question. Roman doesn’t respond. “We make a good team. I don’t know why. We just do. We’re—we’re pretty damn good together.”

Roman wants to disagree. He wants to argue.

He knows Stewy is right.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Stewy says. “But I’m telling the truth. This isn’t about Kendall. It hasn’t been about him for a really long fucking time. This is about your dad being a complete and total piece of shit. I want him to pay for the things he’s done.”

Making Logan Roy pay for the things he’s done would require a lot more than just taking his empire away. Roman chooses not to say that.

“Okay,” he says quietly.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” He nods. “Yeah. Fine. Okay.”

“Okay.” Stewy lets out a long breath. “You okay?”

“I’m fucking—” he starts to snap, then cuts himself off. “Yeah. I’m—we’re good.”

“Good.”

Roman collapses back onto the pillows and looks up at the ceiling. There are still a million things he wants to ask Stewy, a million things he wants to tell him. Things he thinks he should tell him. Things an actual functioning human being would be able to communicate.

“Stewy?”

“Still here.”

“Play something?” Roman requests softly. He feels stupid for even asking.

Stewy tilts his head as he looks down at Roman. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.” He gets out of bed and pulls on a t-shirt, stretches his arms. “You coming?”

Roman tucks himself into the corner of the couch again, into the spot that he’s already started to think of as his. He fidgets with the edge of a blanket, pulling the threads between his fingers. 

Stewy sits down on the piano bench. He holds his hands above the keys. “What do you want?”

“Anything.” He doesn’t know. Whatever Stewy wants to give him.

There’s another moment of silence, and then Stewy starts playing. 

The sound fills the living room and spreads into the rest of the apartment. Roman closes his eyes for a second, but he can’t resist the urge to open them again and watch. Stewy’s back is straight, his posture perfect, but his body sways along with the music. His fingers dance across the keys. He plays as if there’s no one there listening. He plays as if he’s alone, as if he can’t feel Roman’s eyes on his back, as if the one-man audience is nonexistent. 

Roman’s mind is racing, the music a soundtrack beneath his stumbling thoughts. There are feelings rising to the surface, coming dangerously close to breaking through. He shoves them back down.

_We make a good team._

He knows Stewy is right. For some reason, some godforsaken reason, they work together. It’s as if Stewy can anticipate every move, every word that Roman is going to say, every plan he wants to make. Stewy takes the thoughts that Roman has and molds them into actual coherent ideas. Stewy makes sense of things that Roman can’t. Stewy sees right through him in a way that no one ever has before.

It makes Roman feel naked, vulnerable. Scared, if he’s completely honest with himself. He’s not good at being honest with himself.

Roman pushes himself to his feet and walks towards Stewy. His heart is pounding. He ignores it.

Stewy looks up at him as he leans against the piano. There’s a soft smile on his lips, just barely there. Roman’s heart skips a beat, and he quickly looks away. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Stewy look back out the window. 

The song Stewy is playing is soft, gentle, but there’s a kind of hopefulness beneath it—like something sad is happening now, but something better is coming after it. Roman doesn’t know how to interpret music correctly. He doesn’t know what it’s all supposed to mean, or if he’ll ever really understand it. But this one makes him want to feel hopeful.

It’s stupid. It’s probably stupid.

He watches Stewy’s hands as he plays. Stewy presses the keys with so much purpose, so much confidence in the note he’s going to play. He still doesn’t understand how Stewy can play without looking at the keys—he supposes it becomes more natural the longer you play, like learning how to type without looking at the keyboard. But he’s still blown away every time by how effortlessly Stewy plays, how easily he produces beautiful music. It’s something Roman can’t do.

There are a lot of things Roman can’t do. A lot of things that he can’t do that Stewy can.

_We make a good team._

They make a good team because they fit. Stewy takes on the burden of Roman’s flaws, his mistakes, the things he can’t do. He picks up where Roman has dropped off and makes it make sense.

Stewy’s hand fits perfectly in Roman’s. His arm fits perfectly around Roman’s shoulders. Roman’s head fits perfectly against the place where Stewy’s neck meets his shoulder. Roman fits perfectly in Stewy’s bed, on Stewy’s couch, in Stewy’s apartment. 

Roman has been staring at Stewy for god knows how long. He’s not sure how much time has passed, but Stewy is still playing as if he doesn’t notice, as if he’s completely unaware of all of the thoughts that are racing through Roman’s head.

Stewy looks up and meets Roman’s eyes, and something clicks.

 _Oh,_ he thinks. 

_Oh, fuck._

He feels lightheaded.

“Rome?” Stewy asks softly. The music stops. “Hey, you okay?”

Roman forces himself to swallow. “I—”

“Dude, you look like you’re about to pass out. Do you—”

“I think I need to leave.”

“What?”

“I gotta fucking—I need to—”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Stewy gets to his feet. Roman takes a step back as Stewy takes a step towards him. Stewy’s expression is concerned. Roman feels like he might puke. “Roman, babe, hey.”

“I think—”

“Sit down,” Stewy tells him. 

Roman nods and follows the order. He sits down carefully on the edge of the couch and drops his head into his hands. Stewy stands in front of him. Roman can tell Stewy wants to reach out and put a hand on his shoulder. He doesn’t. 

Of course he doesn’t, because Stewy gets it. Stewy gets him. Roman’s head is spinning. Stewy gets him, and Roman gets Stewy, and they’re whatever the fuck they are to each other, and Roman thinks he has feelings for someone—real, actual _feelings_ —for the first time in his fucking life.

Stewy kneels down in front of him. “Hey,” he says softly. “You okay?”

He shakes his head. Stewy’s hand finds its way to his knee. 

“Roman, I’m here. You’re okay. You’re good.”

“I’m good?” he asks. His voice is weak.

Stewy nods. “Yeah. Yeah, you are, sweetheart. Hey.” His hands wrap around Roman’s wrists, pulling his hands away from his face. “You’re alright.” 

Roman closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Counts to five. Counts to ten. Stewy is still looking at him when he opens his eyes again. 

He’s fine. He’s fine, and Stewy is fine, and everything is fine.

Except that his entire world has just collapsed around him, and the wreckage is still smoldering.

Stewy smiles softly at him. Roman’s heart leaps into his throat.

“I’ve got you,” Stewy tells him. He sits next to Roman, carefully pulling him into his chest. Roman lets it happen. He needs to let it happen. He feels Stewy press a kiss to the top of his head. “You’re good.”

Roman lets himself breathe for a moment, reminds himself of where he is. 

He’s at Stewy’s apartment, on Stewy’s couch. Stewy has his arms wrapped around him. He can feel Stewy’s heartbeat, Stewy’s beard scratching against his forehead. Stewy is humming softly under his breath. It’s real, and Roman is okay. 

“Roman,” Stewy whispers.

“Here.”

“Everything okay?”

Roman pauses for a second, forcing himself to swallow. “Yeah. I’m—I’m sorry, I don’t know—I wasn’t—”

“It’s okay,” Stewy cuts him off. “Whatever it was, you’re okay.”

“You don’t have to fucking baby me.” There’s less venom in it than he intended. It mostly just sounds sad—pathetic.

“I’m not,” Stewy protests. “Roman, I don’t—fuck.” He shakes his head. “Is it really that hard for you to believe that I fucking care about you?”

Roman is quiet for a moment. He wants to say it is. He wants to lie and say it’s really fucking difficult for him to believe that Stewy cares about him, because it should be true. It has been true. It was true at the beginning and it was true for a long time. But it’s not anymore. He believes Stewy. He knows Stewy cares about him.

Knowing that Stewy cares is somehow worse than believing he doesn’t care at all.

He shrugs. “I don’t know.” 

“Don’t bullshit me, Rome.”

“I’m not.” 

“Do you believe me?”

Roman pulls away, sits up, forces himself to meet Stewy’s eyes. They’re both silent. 

“...yeah,” he finally says. “Yeah.”

Stewy nods and lets out a breath. “Okay.” 

He reaches back up and cups the back of Roman’s neck, pulling him back into him. He kisses the corner of Roman’s mouth, and Roman presses himself against him.

He thinks this is going to be okay. Whatever the fuck it is, he thinks maybe, eventually, it could be okay.

* * *

Logan finally snaps.

It’s nothing Roman isn’t used to, but this time, it hits him harder than usual. Logan screams at him, and lifts his hand as if he’s going to smack him, and when Roman flinches and ducks out of the way, Logan screams at him some more.

He yells at him to get the fuck out. Roman does.

Stewy is sitting on the couch when Roman storms into the apartment. He looks up in surprise, but the expression is quickly replaced by concern. 

“Hey,” he says carefully, eyes traveling over Roman as if he’s checking for bruises. “What the fuck happened?”

“I want out.” Roman’s voice is shaking. He silently curses himself for it, takes a deep breath, and repeats: “I want out.” 

There’s a beat, then a hint of a smile at the corner of Stewy’s lips. His eyes brighten. “That’s my guy.”

Roman’s cheeks flush. He resists the urge to curl in on himself. “You’re gonna be with me on this?”

“Every fucking step of the way.” 

“God, you’re so gross.” There’s still a tremor in his voice. 

“Fuck you.” Stewy is smiling.

“Fuck you too.”

“You’re gonna do this.”

Well, fuck. He’s gonna do this. 

“Roman,” Stewy says, as if he can feel the impending panic bearing down on Roman. He steps forward, hooks his fingers through Roman’s belt loops, and pulls him in. “Roman, hey. It’s gonna be fine. We’re gonna do this.”

They’re going to do this. He’s going to do this. He’s going to get the fuck out. 

Him and Kendall and Stewy, of all fucking people. Who would’ve thought?

“I should call Kendall,” Roman says uncertainly. “I think he’s—he should probably, you know. Know?” 

“Yeah, probably.” Stewy kisses him softly. “I think that can wait a minute, though.”

“Stewy?”

“Yeah.”

“Is this really gonna work?”

Stewy pulls back and considers him for a second. Roman holds his breath.

Finally, Stewy nods. “Yeah. Yeah, I really think it is.” 

Roman exhales. “Alright.”

“You trust me?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Stewy cups Roman’s face in his hands and kisses him slowly. Roman covers Stewy’s hands with his own as he returns the kiss.

Later, they call Kendall. Roman holds the phone. Stewy sits next to him, squeezing his arm every once in a while. 

Kendall tells him he’s proud of him. For once, Roman actually believes it.

Stewy kisses him again. Roman feels like he might puke, from anxiety or stress or excitement or contempt for himself, he doesn’t know. Maybe all of them at once. Probably all of them at once. They have a drink.

Roman’s hands are shaking slightly. _We’re going to do this,_ he keeps reminding himself, as if repeating it over and over will actually make it feel real. It doesn’t work, not yet.

He’s going to kill his father—metaphorically, of course, though he thinks that maybe it’ll give him a heart attack and kill him literally, too. His brother and his—whatever the fuck Stewy is to him—are going to help him bring his father down. After Roman and Stewy betrayed Kendall, and Kendall betrayed Stewy, and Kendall betrayed Logan, they’re all coming back together to end it for good. The whole thing feels a little too Shakespearian. 

It’s just the right amount of drama that Roman has been striving for his entire life.

Stewy’s hand is still on Roman’s arm. Roman feels as if he might float away if he lets go. 

“Roman,” Stewy says softly, dragging him out of his own head. “You’re thinking about something.”

“I’m thinking about a lot of shit.”

“Like what?”

Roman rolls his eyes, but it’s half-hearted. “Oh, you know. Ending my father’s empire.”

There’s a hint of a smile on Stewy’s lips. “Happy thoughts, then.”

“Terrifying thoughts.”

“Mhm.” Stewy leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth. Roman ducks away from it. Stewy looks hurt for a fraction of a second, and it sends a twinge of pain into Roman’s chest. 

_Fuck._

“Stewy.”

“Yeah?”

“I need to—I, uh—fuck. I need to—I want to tell you…”

“What’s up?” 

Roman forces himself to swallow despite the fact that his throat is as dry as the Sahara. He shakes his head.

“Can you just not—can you fucking look away while I do this?” he asks. “I can’t—I can’t, you know, fucking… while you’re fucking staring at me like a creep.”

Stewy raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t argue. He turns away. Roman stares at his back for a second, then looks back at the piano, just to give himself something to focus on besides Stewy.

“I don’t fucking—I don’t know what the fuck this is,” Roman says. “I’ve never—I’m just fucking confused alright? Everything about this stupid shit is just fucking confusing. I don’t know what…” He closes his eyes for a second, takes a breath. “I’m not good at this.”

“You’re doing fine,” Stewy tells him. “I’m listening.”

Roman shakes his head. His thoughts are still scrambled, and it feels like he’s pulling bits and pieces out of nowhere, trying to stick them together into something coherent.

“This doesn’t happen to me, alright? I’m not—I don’t usually, you know. I don’t usually fucking have _feelings_ for people.” He can’t see Stewy’s face, but he can almost sense the fact that Stewy is smiling. “And I don’t know what—what this is, or what I am, or what… I don’t know anything.” He takes a deep breath. “But I fucking—I fucking think about you. All the time. When I was fucking captured by goddamn terrorists, I was thinking about you”

It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. It feels like a weight has been lifted off of his chest. He still wants to curl into a ball and hide.

“And maybe that makes me pathetic. I don’t know.” His hands are shaking. He rubs his palms over his knees, pushing down with just enough pressure that it almost hurts. “I don’t know what it means, or if I’m—” He can’t say it; the word still chokes him. “But I know I—I want to be around you. I want to know—I feel—fuck.” 

There are so many things he wants to say. He can’t say any of them. He can’t explain everything that’s going on inside his head right now, or anything that he’s felt over the last few months. But Stewy is supposed to understand him. Stewy _does_ understand him, and Roman just hopes that he can somehow understand this, too. 

“Roman,” Stewy says softly.

“Yeah.”

“Can I turn around now?”

He takes a breath. Nods. “Yeah.”

Stewy turns around to face him again. Roman can’t read his expression. It feels like there’s a hand gripping his heart, squeezing tighter and tighter. He can’t breathe.

Stewy opens his arms, and Roman all but falls into them.

“Roman,” Stewy whispers. “I get it. I get it.”

“I don’t—” His voice is choked.

“I know.” Stewy shushes him. “I get it. You’re okay.”

“Don’t leave,” he whimpers pathetically.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Roman wants to make fun of him for how fucking cheesy it is. He wants to make a joke about Stewy thinking they’re in some stupid romance movie. He wants to tease him and push back and refuse to take it seriously.

He doesn’t.

He lets himself rest his head against Stewy’s chest.

Roman takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. Stewy tightens his arms around him. He feels a soft kiss against the top of his head. He thinks he hears Stewy whisper something, but he can’t tell. He lets it go.

He thinks this is what it’s supposed to feel like.

He thinks this is what it’s supposed to feel like when someone cares about you, when someone understands you, when someone _sees_ you.

He thinks this is what it’s supposed to feel like when someone loves you.

It’s strange. It should make him panic. It doesn’t, not quite, not fully. His heart is racing in his chest, and his head is spinning, but that’s nothing new.

“You okay?” Stewy asks him softly, pulling back to look at him.

Roman nods quickly. “Yeah,” he says, voice strangled. He clears his throat and tries again. “Yeah. I’m good. I’m—I’m fucking good.”

“Good.” 

He thinks this is what it should be like. He doesn’t know for sure.

He wants to ask, to check if what he thinks is happening is actually happening, to find out whether this thing is real or not, to find out if he’s just being a fucking idiot again and pinning way too many feelings and hopes on something that doesn’t mean anything. 

Stewy is watching him, concerned. Roman looks away. 

“Roman?”

“Yeah.” 

“You’re going to be just fine. We’re going to be fine.”

“How can you be so fucking sure?”

“Because I know you.” Stewy raises an eyebrow, a ghost of a smile on his face. “And you’re fucking tough, and you’re smart, and you’re going to be fine.”

“Shut up,” Roman mutters, cheeks flushing.

“Whatever happens,” Stewy says, “this is going to be fine. I promise.”

He’s telling the truth.

Roman believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> this was my first attempt at writing roman's pov and it kind of got out of hand, but i'm happy with where it ended up. leave kudos and comments if you enjoyed and come say hi on tumblr @vaguelyprophetic


End file.
